


Sea Shanties

by dustofwarfare, ohmyfae



Series: Imperative [9]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Age of Sail AU, BDSM AU, F/M, M/M, Multi, Noncon is in chapter one only, Reference to self harm, Sex, Violence, noncon happens off screen but is referenced
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27063505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: A series of stories set prior to the events of the pirate AU in the Imperative series. Each chapter will feature a different character’s backstory, ranging from dramatic and dangerous to fluffy and bittersweet.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc, Claude von Riegan's Father/Tiana von Riegan | Claude von Riegan's Mother, Felix Hugo Fraldarius' Mother/Tiana von Riegan | Claude von Riegan's Mother
Series: Imperative [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654516
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	1. Ashe Ubert

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate-universe Pirates!AU AND it's a ds-verse AU. That means it's set in a world where everyone is either biologically a dominant or submissive, please take care if you are sensitive to that kind of content.
> 
> The noncon and violence tags apply to chapter one only.

“Well, friend,” says the man in the tattered jacket, leaning on his broom. “Aren’t you a lucky one.”

Ashe Ubert looks up from his hands. Two thin lines cross his palms, raised scar tissue pale in the moonlight. A thief’s mark, sliced clean. In Fhirdiad, where he comes from, one more mark would have his right hand taken by the axe. Here, they’re just scars. He wraps them around his knees and stares at the man on the other side of the cage, which is crammed into one side of Count Rowe’s ship. The shadow of the mainmast falls between them, a dark line disappearing into the water of the Abyss. 

“Define luck,” Ashe says, and the man laughs. He can’t be that much older than he is, though it’s hard to tell with his delicate face and violet hair. It’s strange, maybe, but all pirates in the Abyss tend to be a little odd. They wear what wealth they have openly, duel each other on the edge of town over things like poets or lovers or both, and they’re all, every last one of them, more terrible than Ashe could have ever imagined. 

The pirate sticks a hand through the bars of Ashe’s cage, which is squat and rusted, the kind of cage nobles reserve for hunting dogs. “You can call me Yuri.”

“Ashe.” Ashe takes his hand. It’s calloused, warm, and Ashe can feel Yuri’s fingers slide over his scars with the ease of a thief, too quick for most to notice. “That’s your real name?”

“Saints, no. Is that yours?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Ashe reflexively checks Yuri for rings, and Yuri smiles and draws his hand back. 

“You might want to come up with another one. But I don’t know. Ashe suits you.” Yuri tilts his head. “You need a knife, friend?”

Ashe blinks, startled, and scoots back so that his shoulders press up against the bars. “What do you mean?”

“I mean a knife,” Yuri says. “You were taken by Rowe for what, thieving? Don’t look so shocked, I could feel you casing me. But if he has you, that means you might want to, you know.” He runs a finger down his cheek. “Pretty yourself up a little.”

Ashe blanches. “You don’t mean that.”

Yuri shrugs. “You can break your own nose, maybe. Or something else, if you want to, but it’s your face he’ll want. Rowe, he likes them clean.”

The walls of the cage seem to bend in the moonlight, arching towards him, and Ashe’s breathing comes short. He expected hard labor, perhaps, when Count Rowe caught him digging in his stores and tossed him into the cage with snarled promises of retribution. To be dragged up before whatever counts for justice in a place like the Abyss. Shipped off to the capital. He looks at Yuri, whose gaze isn’t pitying, exactly. Just steady. Even. The eyes of a man who isn’t bothering to lie.

“But your face is fine,” Ashe says.

Yuri’s smile is wry, and a shadow crosses his eyes, a darkness stirring behind his perfect, unmarked skin. 

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

Ashe doesn’t take the knife. 

***

It would be better, Ashe thinks, as he kneels at the foot of an enormous bed bolted to the floor of the captain’s cabin, if Count Rowe just took what he wanted. 

He doesn’t, though. Not exactly. What the Count does, what makes people skitter out of his way as he walks down the alleys of the Abyss and kneel like he’s a king in the brothels and taverns, is _collect_ people. Every time a member of his crew takes a break in the middle of pumping the bellows or swabbing the deck, one of his men in their clean blue jackets makes a note on their thick pad of lists. Every second not spent working is calculated, every bite of food from the kitchen, every rare sip of water or weak wine. The wear of every hammock is marked down, the cost of maintaining tools and weapons, and then the Count notes it all in his library of heavy journals and tells you what you owe. Yuri owes him six years’ of labor. He used to owe him one.

Ashe owes him thirteen.

“You can cut it down, of course,” the Count says, when Ashe is left with furious tears in his eyes as the lines on the journal blur and blend together into a mass of smudges. “A day’s worth of labor does it, of course, but there are always… specialized jobs.”

“You want me to steal for you,” Ashe says, and the Count laughs. It’s a cold laugh, for a man with a handsome, square-jawed face and bright brown eyes, and he examines Ashe like a nobleman looking over a horse at the stables.

“No,” he says. “You’ve shown how competent you are in that regard. No, what I mean is, well. At your level of experience, a submissive at one of the lesser brothels in town would run for a good price. More, depending on what he’s willing to do.”

Ashe thinks of Yuri standing over the cage, running a finger down the side of one cheek. Yuri in the hold, dipping his fingers in a pot of face paint the color of his pale skin. The scarf he wraps around his face when the sun beats down on the deck and the waves sparkle with light. 

“Consider it,” Count Rowe says. “And I’ll have another mark from you for tracking dirt into my cabin.” He jots something in his book. “Good night, sailor.”

Yuri is waiting for him outside, dressed in a patched jacket with long grey sleeves. He tosses Ashe an apple. “Catch, pretty boy.”

Ashe catches the apple one-handed, then rolls it over his knuckles, tosses it behind his back, and catches it again. Yuri grins and throws him a knife, and Ashe snatches it out of the air.

“Walk with me,” Yuri says, and there’s that hint of dominance in his voice, soft and seductive, more powerful than he ever lets on. Ashe follows him, cutting into the apple, and hands him a slice. They stop at the bow of the ship, which overlooks the bright windows and cookfires of the Abyss, and Yuri leans against the rail, wind ruffling his violet hair. 

After a minute, he holds out his hand. 

“No need to agonize over it,” he says. “You can give it back.”

Ashe’s fingers shake as he drops the knife into Yuri’s palm. Yuri sheathes it under his shirt, and Ashe breathes out hard as Yuri places a hand on the back of his neck, squeezes it gently. 

“It’s alright,” he says, as Ashe bows over the railing, holding his untouched face in both hands. “Just… don’t rush into anything, yeah? Take your time. It won’t always be hopeless.”

But it isn’t as though Ashe has any other options.

Now, Ashe curls his fists on his knees and stares at the door. He thinks of his siblings, who probably think he’s dead by now, tucked away in a nearby village with no one left to provide for them. His fingers clench tighter. 

It isn’t as though he hasn’t subbed for anyone before. His friends in the thieves guild in Fhirdiad took him out when he came of age not long ago—He knows enough to know that he’s not much for service or pain. He likes… theatrics, he thinks. Grand gestures. Proving himself with tasks that seem impossible, making them real. It’s why thieving is such a hard habit to break, why he eyes peoples’ necks and the weight of their jackets, the way their skirts hang over belt pouches and purses. 

The door opens, and Count Rowe strides in, looks down at Ashe kneeling perfectly where he’s meant to be, and strikes him so hard across the face that Ashe tastes blood on his tongue.

Yuri finds him, after. He doesn’t have to. Ashe doesn’t mean him to, tucks himself away somewhere no one can find him with his back a ruin and his clever fingers trembling, but Yuri always seems to know where to find him. 

“Kneel properly, Ashe,” he says, and Ashe looks at him with alarm. In the dark, it’s hard to see Yuri’s face. Just his eyes, sharp and cutting but not unkind.

“That’s the first time you’ve called me by name since I got here,” Ashe says.

“Don’t put too much thought into it,” Yuri whispers. His soft hair brushes Ashe’s cheek as he kisses his temple. “Breathe for me.”

Ashe closes his eyes as water trickles over his back.

“I told you to wait, you know.” There’s no judgment in Yuri’s voice—It’s just an observation, subdued and soft in the darkness of the hold.

“I know,” Ashe says “I think. I think I hate him.”

“Of course you do,” Yuri says. “He’s not even a sadist. Just a thug. At least his man, Gwendal, doesn’t pretend to be what he’s not.”

“Why don’t you just…” Ashe hisses as Yuri starts to sponge off the water, brushing sensitive weals that ooze sluggishly. “Don’t people run?”

Yuri is silent for a moment. “They’ve tried,” he says. “Once or twice. Be still, now.” He reaches for Ashe’s clenched fist with his free hand, and Ashe breathes out slow. “I have you.”

Ashe is charged for the bandages. Later, he’s charged for the chain, the choke collar that pinches his throat, the blindfolds Rowe uses when he’s dragged out in public. The cost of a new whip when he ruins the leather. The cost of new sheets when he spits blood on the silk, of boot polish, food hand-picked from Rowe’s plate.

But he has it easy. Better, maybe, than some of the others. At least his debt is going down every time he kneels, every time the collar cinches around his neck.

The day Count Rowe flays a man alive for stealing a bottle of wine, he hands the end of Ashe’s lead to Yuri, who stands in silence while Ashe stares down at the polished wood of the deck.

“Let this be a lesson,” Rowe says, as the tense, quiet crowd of sailors watch the thing that had once been a man tremble on the deck. He turns towards Ashe, and Ashe glances up to see Yuri’s grip tighten on the lead.

“Give it to me,” Rowe says. Yuri hesitates, just for a breath, and Rowe grabs him by the hair, twists, draws a hiss out of Yuri that makes Ashe’s stomach clench. “You think you’re immune just because I used to parade you around on my arm, do you? You think you’re any better than this?” 

Ashe winces as Rowe kicks him in the side, and Yuri’s feet slide on the deck as he’s dragged up by the hair. “No, Captain.”

“I don’t believe you,” Rowe says. He wrenches Ashe’s lead around his wrist and drags them both across the deck, into the cool darkness of the captain’s quarters. He tosses Ashe to the side and points at him. “Stay where you are.”

Then he turns, still holding Yuri by the hair, and pushes Yuri up against the wall.

“Let’s see that pretty face of yours, little bird,” he says, and Yuri’s hands grasp for his belt as Rowe brings the edge of the knife to Yuri’s jaw.

Ashe gets to his feet. There’s a small statue of a woman rising out of the sea on Rowe’s desk, her face upturned. The statue is cool to the touch—so still, his thief’s hands, the thin scars of his trade pressed hard to the bronze—and when Ashe hefts it, he and Yuri meet each other’s gaze for a brief, fleeting second.

Then it’s done, and Rowe is at his feet, his handsome face a mask of blood. Ashe looks up at Yuri, who is still pressed against the wall, breathing hard. Rowe’s knife has left marks against his makeup, revealing something reddish and jagged at his jaw, and Ashe forces himself not to look.

“Huh,” Yuri says, as Ashe wipes his bloodstained hands on his own bare thighs. “That’s your first kill, I suppose.”

“Guess so,” Ashe says.

Yuri smiles, and Ashe smiles back, unbidden, a hysterical laugh bubbling in his chest. Yuri steps over Rowe’s body and takes Ashe’s cheek in one hand.

“Let’s rob him for all he’s got,” Yuri says.

“Gods, yes,” Ashe says, and Yuri laughs. He kisses him, close-mouthed and smiling, and gets to his knees next to Rowe’s body.

“First, his rings,” he says. “Then we’ll see about getting you some new clothes, my friend.”

***

They bury the body at the edge of town after sunset. No one comes for them, though, even when they walk into the Siren’s End tavern all bloody and grinning and take up the washroom for an hour. Even when people from Rowe’s ship start trickling in, spreading the news that someone killed the Count. Even when they rent a room with one of the Count’s own rings and spread what they’ve stolen all over the floor, Yuri kicking jewels and bracelets about as he paces the boards.

“I’ll make my own crew,” he says, as Ashe sits on the edge of the bed, watching him. He’s never been so animated, so… on _fire,_ and he gestures wildly as he builds up an impossible structure of pirates loyal to him and him alone. “We’ll set up a fund for the orphans, get them off the streets. Impose a tax on ships that dock for more than two weeks—Wouldn’t want people thinking they can establish themselves here.”

Ashe stretches out on the bed. Yuri whirls on one heel. “And you’ll be with me,” Yuri says. “Right? I could use you on my side. Someone with flash. Someone who can steal a man’s jewels with a handshake while I divest him of his crew.”

“Not a whore?” Ashe asks. “For favors?”

The fire flickers in Yuri’s eyes. “No.” He looks at Ashe, then, and his smile slowly fades. “You don’t have to do anything for me. I owe you a debt, Ashe. Anything you want, and if it’s in my power, I’ll grant it.”

Ashe looks at him, this young man talking power with bruises forming on his neck and the blood of a dead man staining his jacket, and smiles.

“Nah,” he says. “I think I’ll stick around. You know. To see what happens.”

Yuri’s smile is brighter than it's ever been, and when he kisses Ashe a second time, it’s fierce and quick and hot as the spark of a flame. Ashe kisses him back, bunching up the front of Yuri’s shirt, and Yuri opens his mouth, tips his chin up, clambers onto the bed with the graceless scramble of a jittery young man. 

“I want to see you, sweet thing,” he breathes, as though he hasn’t already. As though he hasn’t seen Ashe naked a hundred times by now. But the way Yuri says it, all eager and strained, Ashe almost believes him. He nods, starts unbuttoning the shirt they grabbed from a dead man’s dresser, and Yuri treats each expanse of his skin like a revelation. He kisses his shoulders, runs his hands over his chest, moans at the finger marks of blood that still haven’t rubbed off his thighs entirely. Yuri slides his hands over them and kisses Ashe’s bare neck.

“Beautiful,” he says.

“Yes,” Ashe whispers, sinking his fingers into Yuri’s hair. It’s as soft as he always imagined it to be. 

“The things we’ll do,” Yuri says, pushing Ashe down on the bed. He kisses down Ashe’s chest, his stomach. “Clever, wicked things.”

“Yes. _Yes._ ”

“And I’ll have you,” Yuri says. Ashe glances down, shivers at the heat in his eyes. “Not as he did. You’ll be mine, as long as you’ll need it. Longer. Always.”

“Yes,” Ashe manages to say, and thumps his head back on the pillow as Yuri takes him in his mouth. He writhes on the sheets, and Yuri chuckles faintly, the sound going right through him, and slides a hand over his belly. He doesn’t hold him down, just feels the way Ashe arches and shifts under him, thighs tensing, his breathing harsh. 

Ashe comes quietly, teeth digging into his own wrist, and Yuri draws back to watch him come down from it, panting and wild-eyed. There’s something almost fey about Yuri, Ashe thinks. It reminds him of the old stories of sirens, creatures that shed their scales to walk the shore, never quite human, beautiful and cold. Ashe pushes himself up and climbs into Yuri’s lap, kisses the corner of his jaw where his makeup runs. The skin there is thin, and Yuri’s breath hitches as Ashe grinds down in his lap.

“I’m yours,” Ashe says, lips brushing over Yuri’s jaw. “As long as you’ll have me.”

***

“Gentlemen!”

Ashe looks up from where he’s pretending to wait tables at the Charon Inn as Yuri enters, flanked by the few remaining members of Count Rowe’s crew that he’s managed to lure to his side. His violet hair is impeccable, and he’s in a new, tailored suit with a cape that swirls dramatically just above his heels. Behind him, Balthus, a good-natured man who owes half the Abyss at least a few fingers in debt by now, pushes past Ashe as though they weren’t playing cards in a dingy tavern two nights ago. Then there’s the quiet one, Hapi, who can’t resist ruffling his hair as she passes, and Yuri himself lets his gaze slide past Ashe as though he’s never seen him before.

The three of them settle down at a wide table, where a group of pirates have been playing cards for most of the evening. They make room for Balthus, who loses spectacularly most days, and turn disinterested looks towards Hapi and Yuri. Yuri just smiles.

“Thank you for dealing us in,” he says, as Ashe comes back around to top off the drinks. One of the pirates half-heartedly reaches for Ashe’s waist, but he doesn’t care enough to really go for it. Ashe bumps into him as he dances out of the way, and slides a fine gold chain off his neck.

“Mm, I may need luck for this one,” Yuri says, and one of the other men at the table laughs. “You.” Yuri snaps his fingers at Ashe. “Come here.”

“No chance with that one,” someone says. “He’s skittish as a cat.” He grabs for Ashe’s hair at that, and Ashe twists out of the way, letting his hand brush along the man’s wrist. He slips a gold ring into his pocket and makes his way to Yuri.

Yuri takes Ashe’s chin and lifts his head for a cursory examination. “What do you say, sweet thing? Will you be my luck tonight?”

Ashe looks down, and Yuri snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Yes, sir.”

Yuri smiles wickedly and drags Ashe onto his lap. He holds up his cards for Ashe to inspect. “Blow for me,” he says, and as Ashe leans over to blow on the cards, he topples forward, grabbing the table for support. Laughter breaks out, and in the ensuing talk of rented submissives and the workers on Cherry Park Lane, they fail to notice the card Ashe slips down his sleeve. 

He stays perched on Yuri’s lap for the rest of the game, kissing his cards or his fingers, slipping new ones into his hands as he pretends to hide his face from the others. When Yuri wins, he wins by a landslide, and Balthus makes a show of cursing him as Ashe gathers his coins.

“For you,” Yuri says, holding out two silver pieces for Ashe. “My luck.” 

When he kisses Ashe over the table, scattering coins beneath them, Ashe reaches up to slide his fingers through Yuri’s hair, smiles warmly, and steals his gold earrings.

“I’m surprised you aren’t clanking when you walk,” Yuri says that evening, lounging in the abandoned house they’ve requisitioned for his new gang. He’s sprawled on a magnificent settee, his makeup perfect, shirt unbuttoned just enough to make Ashe blush and glance away. “Show me what you’ve found, dear heart.”

Ashe pads forward on bare feet and straddles Yuri’s waist. He leans forward, pinning Yuri’s earrings back on, and Yuri raises a brow. Ashe places a circlet with a single diamond in the center over Yuri’s hair, drapes him with necklaces and pearls. He takes Yuri’s fingers in his mouth as he clasps bracelets on his wrists, and when he pulls away, Yuri glitters like a statue at an altar. 

“What do you think?” Ashe asks, grinning. “Is that enough?”

Yuri smiles back. “Not by any means,” he says, and the metal of his rings are cold on Ashe’s cheeks as Yuri kisses him. Then he turns him around so Ashe is lying against the cushions, and pats his thigh. “I’ll have you steal the Abyss for me before we’re done.”

“Yeah? That’s a lot of confidence in one thief, you know.” Ashe yelps as rings bounce off his back, followed by necklaces that slither off his skin like snakes. “Alright, I get it. Goddess, you’re like a dragon, sometimes.”

“It doesn’t hurt to be a little possessive,” Yuri says, “and who wouldn’t want to dress you up in gold? Don’t I ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

“Only all the time,” Ashe says, and Yuri musses his hair. Ashe turns on his side to kiss him, and Yuri rolls him onto his back. 

“And what can I give you,” Yuri says, biting a mark into Ashe’s neck, just above the scars left by a long-distant choke collar. “When you’ve taken the Abyss for me, my thief?”

“This,” Ashe says, wrapping his arms around Yuri’s neck. “This is just fine.”


	2. Khalid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is all fluff. Just total fluff.

The heir of Almyra has many names.

On the vast, interconnected network of ships, floating islands, and the low keys that are part of the coral reef that make up Almyra, he is Khalid. To the people of the ports and docks along the Fodlan coast, he is Claude von Riegan. To the members of his father’s crew on the White Wyvern, he is Dragonlet, or sometimes Menace. To his brother, who only just started speaking in full sentences after years of silence, he’s Kal.

But right now, to his second mother, Salma, he is just _minnow._

“Swim fast, little minnow,” Salma says, as Khalid furiously paddles across the clear, cool waters of the Crescent reef. Coral blooms around him, bright anemones and spiky sea slugs and multitudes of fish like a patchwork cloak spreading over the ocean floor, and Khalid’s mother steps backwards over them with all the care and finesse of one who knows them like the deck of a ship. An octopus goes skittering past, blending in with the coral, and Khalid reaches for Salma’s hands and holds on tight.

“Oh, what a good swimmer you are,” she says, which is high praise, because Salma is probably the best swimmer Khalid has ever seen. She’s more at home at sea than even his father or his birth mother, who both can’t stand being on land for more than a few weeks at a time. Khalid lets her pull him into deeper water, past a stingray and a barracuda that eyes them warily from a far distance, and shrieks when she lets go.

“Just move your arms like I told you,” Salma says.

Over her shoulder, the White Wyvern is anchored in a deep pool before the reef drops off into the ocean properly, and Khalid can just see sailors climbing up and down the rigging and casting nets off the canoes they carved themselves before Khalid was born. 

“Mom,” Khalid says. “Mom, mom do you think.” He spits out water. “Do you think I can have my own boat, soon.”

“You need to get bigger first, my minnow,” Salma says.

Khalid sighs. Getting bigger is a trial. He never knows how big is big enough, and every time he grows another inch, his parents say no, not yet. Not now.

“I’m gonna name my boat.” Khalid coughs another mouthful of saltwater. “Starlight. Or Moonlight. Moonstar.”

“Really?” Salma tips up his chin as he splashes after her.

“Yeah. And I’ll have. I’ll have mermaids on my ship, and sea serpents, and star women, and dragons. And we’ll have music all the time and the ship will.” He slips under water, and his mother gently lifts him up again. “The ship will glow because it’s made out of moon.”

“And how will you get pieces of the moon for your ship?” Salma’s smiling.

“Dunno,” Khalid says. He slips again. When he sinks under, he opens his eyes, and he sees Salma’s skinny, red-brown arms moving through the water to catch him. “I’ll chop it down.”

“That’s not very nice to the moon, do you think?”

“It grows back, Mom.”

“Ah.” Salma’s eyes crinkle. “Of course. Silly me.”

She teaches him how to float on his back again when Khalid falls a third time, and he stares up at the cloudless sky as the water sloshes over him, cool and comforting like his mother’s hands under his head.

“Do you think,” he says, after a while.

“Yes, minnow?”

“Do you think there are still women in the stars?” Khalid asks. “Dad says they fall sometimes, and they make dragons, or mermaids, or they. They give us math. Which was mean, because math is hard.”

“Well, your father may have been metaphorical.”

“Oh.” Khalid has no idea what _metaphorical_ means, but he nods. “I’d like to make friends with a star. One day, I’ll. I’ll go looking for one. And we’ll be friends, and she’ll do my math lessons for me.”

Salma laughs and kisses his forehead. “I can’t wait to meet her, then. I—“ Khalid helps as she pulls him closer, one arm holding him to her chest, and he blinks saltwater from his eyes just in time to see a dark shape race towards them from the reef.

A shark, he thinks. He’s seen sharks before, hunting fish in the waves and swimming about at the side of the ship when they throw fish guts into the water, but he’s never seen one up close before. This one is small, maybe about Khalid’s size at most, and as it makes a beeline for them, Salma’s hand tightens around Khalid’s shoulder and something shifts and flickers beneath them. He peers down just in time to see a massive tail thrashing up the sand into a fog, and he screams.

One of the sailors on the canoes cries out as the dark shape breaches the water—

And a white wyvern pops its neck into the warm air, chirping excitedly. It’s white all over, with no spots or shading to its scales, and it has stubby little horns and flared spines at its neck. It clicks and whistles, and Khalid feels his mother breathe out a sigh at his back.

Beneath them, the sand stills, and when Khalid looks, all he sees are Salma’s strong legs, treading water.

“Mom,” Khalid whispers, as the wyvern paddles closer, chirping like a bird. “It’s a wyvern, like the boat.”

Every king of Almyra has a wyvern. They use them to fly from ship to ship, usually, though sometimes, when the wyverns need to roost, they stay on one of the keys in the middle of the reef, and fly back to the king when they’re rested. Khalid’s father told him that most wyverns come from the sea, but they’re too indecisive to stay beneath or above it for very long. 

“Do you know how to say hello?” Salma whispers. Khalid nods, and tries to whistle. It comes out weak, but the wyvern perks up at the sound and whistles back. It splashes over to them, examining Khalid, even tentatively nipping at his hair. 

“My lady!”

The wyvern trills and ducks under the water at the sound of a man’s voice behind them, and Salma turns towards one of the sailors, who had paddles a spare canoe over to the reef. He’s a sailor from Fodlan who only just took the oath as a sailor on the ships of Almyra, and his pale skin is pink in the sun. 

“Thought you might be in need, my lady,” he says, in thickly accented Almyran. “How’s the swimming lesson, little prince?”

“You scared the wyvern away,” Khalid says.

“Ah,” he says. Khalid thinks he might not know the word for _wyvern_ , yet. “I’m sure you’ll find the fish again.”

“Thank you,” Salma says, and lifts Khalid into the canoe. She swims it towards shallow water, climbs in herself with deliberate rocking and swaying that makes Khalid laugh and cling to the sides, and pulls out the oar. 

She sings a rowing song as they paddle towards the ship, but Khalid keeps twisting around to look back at the reef. There are no shadows in the water, no flash of scales or click of a wyvern’s sharp teeth. He sighs and curls up on Salma’s knees as the water rushes by, listening to her low voice ring out over the whistle of the wind and the slosh of the oar.

It isn’t until they’re being pulled up the side of the ship like a net full of fish when Khalid sees it. A shadow in the water, just under the dark spot the canoe has made. It shifts, and Khalid curls his fingers around the edge of the canoe as the white wyvern appears not two feet beneath him, cocking its head.

“Mom,” he whispers.

“Don’t rock the canoe, baby,” Salma says.

The wyvern whimpers.

“It’s okay,” Khalid says. He leans forward, holding out his arms, and the canoe goes tipping over onto its side. There’s a great chorus of shouting as the oar splashes into the water and Khalid goes tumbling out, but then a firm hand grips his ankle and Khalid is dangling just over the wyvern, swaying slightly.

“Come on,” he whispers. The wyvern whistles at him and flaps into his arms, and Khalid hangs on tight as he’s pulled, still held by one hand, up the side of the boat with his prize.

He knows he’s in trouble as soon as he’s hauled onto the deck. His father strides forward, dressed all in the gold and green of Almyra, and Khalid holds the wyvern close and scrunches up his eyes.

“What is this,” his father says, somewhere above him. “Why do you hide from me, Khalid?”

“You’re going to take it away,” Khalid says. The wyvern clicks and burrows its head into his curly hair. “It came to me and it was. It was sad I was going so I.”

“Khalid. Open your eyes.”

Khalid carefully opens them, and immediately regrets it. His father is scowling, his brow furrowed. 

“Do you think I will be throwing you away, too?” he asks. 

“No,” Khalid says.

“Then stand up, Khalid. You know what happens, when you fall off a ship? The way the water moves, it pulls you under. Scrapes you over the barnacles. You want your mother to fall, your mother and father to lose you both?”

Khalid looks down. “No, but—“

“No books,” his father says, and Khalid looks up at once, horrified. “No toys. You will learn knot tying with Uncle Nader—“

“Dad, no—“

“I must have heard wrong, eh, because my good boy Khalid would not interrupt his father when he is displeased.”

Khalid sighs. “Yes, Dad.”

His father looks down at him, his dark eyes unreadable, and places his hands on his hips. “This wyvern. It came to you.” Khalid nods. “It is bad luck, to separate a wyvern from their rider. But you will look after her, and clean her, and if you abandon her or raise a hand against her, the sea itself will come to take its due. You understand?”

Khalid gently pushes the wyvern away from the beaded necklace hanging down his chest. “I can keep her?”

“She can keep you,” his father says. “If you respect her.”

Khalid looks up at his father, who even now seems to be struggling to hide a spark of amusement behind his hard eyes, then down at the white wyvern in his arms, and promptly bursts into tears.

***

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” Tariq says, as he and Khalid slip past their parents’ quarters on the White Wyvern.

Khalid gives his brother a dull look. Tariq’s the one who’s always asking Khalid to sneak out to dangle lanterns over the edge of the ship to try and lure out sirens, or toss bread off the side for sea serpents, or even climb into the canoes strapped to the side of the ship to see who can actually spot one up close, and it’s usually up to Khalid to come up with an excuse when one of their parents inevitably finds them. Tariq sighs and throws his hands in the air, and Khalid heads for the ladder leading to the upper deck.

The White Wyvern is beautiful in the moonlight. The ship has been Khalid’s home since he was born, but he never gets tired of the way the polished deck shines in the starlight, the way he can see the moon through the sails, the dark figures climbing up and down the rigging. He can’t imagine living anywhere else. 

“You’re sure,” Tariq whispers, as Khalid leads them up to the wyvern nests near the wheel. His father’s wyvern, which is also Khalid’s namesake, is asleep on his hoard of precious silks, including a ridiculous gown that Khalid’s mother Tiana swears used to be hers. Khalid and Tariq skirt around him, and over to where Altaira, Khalid’s wyvern, is sleeping in a nest of her own.

“Oh, man,” Khalid says, as she lifts her head to look at them. “That’s the book you gave me for my birthday, the one with the knights.”

“Not anymore,” Tariq says, and smiles behind his hand. The book has been nuzzled half to death, and the pages are loose and rumpled. “Hey, Altaira.”

Altaira whistles and clicks, shoving her head at Khalid. “How do you wanna take a midnight flight, girl?” Khalid asks.

Altaira stands up, flapping her wide, leathery wings, and Tariq and Khalid both try to shush her as she opens her mouth to shriek.

“Let’s just go!” Khalid says, as someone calls out from one of the lower decks. “Go, Tariq, go, go, go!”

Altaira may still be a young wyvern, but Tariq is eight and Khalid is nine, so she doesn’t even seem to notice them as they scramble onto her back. Tariq grabs Khalid around the waist, and Khalid gently holds onto Altaira’s horns.

“Up,” Khalid whispers. “Up, up!”

Altaira does shriek this time, and Khalid the wyvern grumbles and raises his heavy head to blink at them as they all take off, wobbling unsteadily across the ship.

“Dad’s gonna kill us,” Tariq shouts, as a sailor points at them as they pass. “Mom’s gonna kill us! Ma’s gonna—“

“Go higher!” Khalid shouts, and Altaira whistles as she rises above the sails, flapping furiously. “Good girl! Isn’t she amazing, Tariq? Look at that!”

Tariq goes still as they stare out over the starlit ocean. Over Almyra.

“I always forget how big it is,” Tariq whispers.

“That’s ours, Tariq,” Khalid says. “One day, anyways.”

“Boys!” 

Both Khalid and Tariq freeze as their mother’s voice calls out from the deck of the ship. 

“Don’t look,” Khalid says. “If you look, it means you’re guilty.”

“But we _are_ guilty,” Tariq whispers.

“I’m counting to three!” Queen Tiana shouts. “One!”

“We can live on an island in hiding,” Khalid says. “Live off of, of jackfruit or. Or mango or. Fish—“

“Two!”

“Khalid, we’re gonna be literally grounded, she’ll have us stay with that friend of hers in Fodlan she keeps talking about, the one with the snow and the boring husband.”

“Shut up,” Khalid says. “I’m thinking.”

“Three!”

Tariq groans and presses his forehead to Khalid’s back, and Khalid sighs.

“Okay, Altaira,” he says. “Let’s go back down.”

Altaira whistles.

Which, in retrospect, should have been a warning, because Khalid should recognize the high, piercing whistle that is a wyvern’s diving call. But it’s too late, because Altaira is already pulling into a dive, and Khalid only has enough time to cling to her neck and scream before she crashes into the dark ocean.

They drift for a few seconds, Khalid and his brother, floating gently under the waves. Tariq’s hands grasp at Khalid’s tunic, and Khalid hangs on to Altaira and tries to think _Up, up, up,_ at her. Then she’s rising again, and they’re both slipping and scrabbling on her back, which makes her cry out in alarm and drop the fish she caught onto the deck. She lands soon after, spilling both boys onto the deck, and Khalid rolls, over and over, until he lands squarely on one of his mothers’ bare feet.

“Oh,” Khalid says, trying for a smile as both Tiana and Salma stare down at him. “Hi, Mom. Ma. Beautiful night for flying, don’t you think?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crown prince of Almyra drowns, is rescued by a siren, and finds a Fodlan demon hiding on his ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the backstory for Claude's father (Malik), his mother (Tiana) and their submissive (Salma) from the Pirate!AU.

Prince Malik of Almyra drowns on a cold night in early autumn, descending into a sliver of moonlight on the darkened sea.

He should have known this was coming. The priestess at the temple of the gods warned him not to join his father on the maiden voyage of the White Wyvern, with its gold-dusted sails and snarling figurehead, but Malik was eight and young and immortal, and raced up the gangplank to join his father at the wheel. And his father, that cold, stony young man with his wild beard and elusive smile, had laid a heavy hand on Malik’s shoulder and called him son, called him beloved.

Now, Malik thrashes in the cold fist of the ocean, the weight of his father’s hands still lingering on his chest.

All kings of Almyra return to the sea. It is foretold, as immutable as the throne of the sun in the heart of their island kingdom, as certain as the tide, as the deep currents that wind through the earth itself. No king of Almyra lives to see his son take the throne, not since the beginning, when the first king made a promise to the sea that the sea does not forget. Power for a life. A life lived full, surely, but always cut short, unless a king chooses to honor their vow and throw their firstborn to the goddess beneath the waves, instead. So far, none have ever dared to sacrifice their sons, choosing to die as men, sailing into the jaws of the goddess like a true king.

Until now.

Malik opens his eyes. The sea is dark and vast as the sky, and when he screams, roaring like one of the wyverns that make their homes in the high hills of the archipelago, the water seems to tremble with the force of it. He has never been an unworthy son. Oh, he knows his father doesn’t love him, hasn’t since the first time Malik refused to obey his senseless orders to shut up and sit down and be meek and quiet as the submissives who slink around the corners of the Almyran palace, but he has the blood of kings in his veins, and the kings of Almyra are half wild themselves. They have to be, to tame the sea as they do, but Malik’s father has always hated how  _ present _ Malik is in all things, and Malik, swimming desperately into the dark, no longer has the privilege of forgetting that. It’s here, in the heat of his chest, in the water filling his lungs, the useless way he claws at the tide in a last desperate search for air. And he hates it. He hates it more than he’s ever hated anything in his life.

“Why are you in my waters, boy?”

Malik twists, spitting bubbles, but nothing emerges from the darkness at his back. But the voice was there, light and musical, and when slim fingers touch his arm, he just grabs on, clenching his hand around a fragile wrist.

“Silly thing,” the voice says. Something brushes his cheek. Hair, thick and soft, swaying in the current. “You’ll die if you keep wiggling around like a wounded seal. Hold onto me, boy.”

Malik wonders, dimly, if this is the sea that was promised to his forefathers, taking him in return for the strength that the crown provides. If so, perhaps… perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing, really. The voice is soft. As though Malik is an old friend who fell into her waters by mistake, welcomed into her skinny, powerful arms.

Then he emerges into the brilliant, speckled dome of a starry autumn night, and Malik gasps for air with a wrenching sob that echoes over the waves. In the distance, the sails of his father’s ship blot out the moon, and Malik feels a hand in his hair, an arm around his waist, holding him up against the rise and fall of the waves.

He turns. A girl stares back at him, her wide eyes dark, hair hanging in her square-jawed face.

“You’re not supposed to swim like that,” she says, at last, in the same light voice he’d heard under the waves. “Who taught you how?”

“I know how to swim,” Malik snaps. She blinks at him. “I was pushed.”

“Pushed?” Her brows lower slightly. “By who? That big man who was on deck with you? The one with the… whiskers?”

“Yes,” Malik says. A wave lifts them high, and he glowers at the receding shape of his father’s ship on the horizon. “My father.” He turns his dark gaze to her. “Who pushed you?”

The girl is silent. Something swishes against his leg, and the girl tightens her hold on his waist. “No one. I came from below.”

Malik looks down. A powerful tail flashes in the dark water, scales catching the dim light of the moon. When he looks back at the girl, he remembers the old stories the priests and priestesses used to tell of sirens on the seas, dragging sailors down into the dark, twining their limbs in kelp and links of chain. But this girl only stares at him, unsmiling and somber, a little crease forming between her brows. 

“I don’t think I like your father,” she says. Malik laughs. 

“I don’t think I do, either. Do you know a way to land?”

“Maybe. Yes. For you.” The girl touches his damp hair with her free hand. “I saw you on deck earlier. You were singing about a girl in a… forest? It was nice. I haven’t heard that word before. Forest.”

“It’s a thing we have on land,” Malik says. “Full of trees.”

The girl just stares at him. 

“Like masts? But green on the top. You see them on islands sometimes?”

“Oh.” The girl rolls her eyes. “Those things. Yes. Of course. Trees. I know about trees. Everyone knows about trees. I’m not a baby or something, not knowing what trees are.”

“Yes,” Malik says, and for the first time since his father pushed him off the deck of the Wyvern, he smiles. The girl smiles back. “I’m Malik. Prince of Almyra.”

“That’s pretty,” the girl says. “I’m Salma. From below.”

“That’s pretty, too,” Malik says, and the girl beams. “Can you get me home? It’s close by, a big port with a huge statue of a woman sitting on a throne in the water.”

“Oh, yes,” Salma says, with an eager lilt to her voice. “I know all about that one. She’s beautiful. Sometimes I stare at her for hours.”

Malik laughs, and it rolls over the sea, lonely and hoarse. “So do I.”

Salma slides her arm free of his waist. “Hold onto my back, Malik,” she says, “and I’ll bring you to the throne in the sea.”

Malik gingerly places his hands on Salma’s shoulders, and she sighs and grabs them, pulling them around her neck. Her chest is bare, and Malik realizes, a little too late, that he should probably have offered her his cloak. A good prince would have. But she takes off before he can say anything, her beautiful tail swirling the waves into a froth, and suddenly Malik doesn’t have any room in his mind for anything but the wind in his face, the feel of her hair against his cheek, the stars whirling by as they cleave a path through the quiet sea. 

They slow when they reach the harbor where the statue of the sea goddess sits, her high crown weathered by the waves that crash against her back in the summer storms, and Malik slides free of Salma to grasp her hand. They drift around the massive statue, staring up at her soft, moonlit face, and Salma sighs. 

“I look at her from the window of the palace, sometimes,” Malik says. “Up there.” He points, and Salma follows his gaze to the rounded roof of the Almyran palace. “But since I’m to be king one day, I’ll spend more time on the ocean.”

“But what of your father?” This close to the lights of the harbor, Salma’s skin is red-brown, a shade darker than Malik, and her hair is more smoky grey than pure black. She grabs the stone of the goddess’ statue and starts to haul herself up. 

“I don’t know,” Malik says. “He’ll try again, I think.” He pulls at the stone himself, scrambling onto the lip of the throne, and reaches down to help pull Salma up. 

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Kings aren’t supposed to be afraid of anything,” Malik says. When Salma drags herself out of the water in his grasp, she shakes out her long, silvery tail, and it flickers with a flurry of scales. When Malik is done blinking the spots from his eyes, Salma is just a skinny little girl with two perfectly normal legs, swinging her bare feet on the stone.    
  
“I’m afraid,” she says. Her dark eyes are wide against her brown face, and she grabs Malik’s hand tight. 

“Don’t be.” Malik doesn’t have the dominance of his father’s voice, heavy and booming, but he speaks with all the certainty in his eight year old heart. 

“I’ll try,” Salma says. “Will you… see me again?” she asks. “Here? Or on the docks?”

“You can’t go on the docks naked,” Malik says. 

“And you can’t swim properly with all that extra skin,” Salma says, “but I was too polite to say it.”

Malik sighs. Girls. They always get tangled up over the strangest things, even when they aren’t actually girls at all. He takes off his cloak, which his mother gave him as a gift when he was first allowed to set sail, and wraps it around Salma’s shoulders. She stares at it owlishly. 

“Yes,” he says. “Of course I’ll see you again. I owe you. A king always pays his dues.”

“Alright.” Salma smiles and runs her fingers over the cloak. “Then I’ll see you again, Malik of Almyra, in a year and a day. Here, on the throne of the sea.”

Then she kisses him on the cheek, bold as anything. She laughs at Malik’s sputtering look of shock and jumps into the ocean, cloak and all, disappearing beneath the dark water of the harbor like a ghost returning to the sea.

The fishermen find him that morning, returning from the distant waters with their nets bulging, only to discover the prince of Almyra sleeping in the lap of the goddess of the sea, salt speckling his dark hair. They whisper, later, when the kings’ guard is gone and the statue lies empty, that the goddess herself must have delivered Malik home, because not two days go by before the capital hears of the ruin of the White Wyvern beating against the rocks of the Broken Shoals, where no ship dares to sail--and the king, like all kings of Almyra before him, returned at last to the sea.

***

“I do not understand girls,” Malik says, falling heavily to sit beside her. “Why. Why would they kiss you, then tell you not to speak to them, then be angry if you do what they asked, and not say anything when you see them?” 

Salma looks up at him, her dark eyes wary. Malik thinks perhaps he will have to find a child like in the fairytales, maybe, for an heir. Perhaps ask the sea to give children, instead of take them. Maybe it still counts that his father tried to drown him, and no more does his line owe the sea anything. 

At fourteen, Malik knows how babies are made, but to do this you first have to have a wife, a queen, and to do  _ that  _ you must know how to kiss them and win them with sweet words. Malik is not very good at the latter, so he thinks perhaps he would be better just kissing them. Except that Yasamin did not seem to like that, either. 

“Well.” Salma kicks her feet in the water. Sort of angrily. “Maybe you’re. Not very good at it, Kinglet.” 

He makes a face at her. “But how will I get better? And what was it about talking, she said  _ not  _ to talk, and so I did not, then she was angry at me.” 

“Maybe she. Wanted to talk to you, but was afraid you wouldn’t so she said not to, but she - she really did wish you’d talk to her.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense, though,” Malik says. He sighs. “I am sorry, Salma. Here it is the one time we see each other, and we do not have to talk about how I am bad at kissing.” He smiles at her, this strange girl who saved him once, a long time ago, and brought him safely back home. 

“Maybe it’s just that you aren’t kissing the right girls.” Salma says, o the water. 

“Well, I suppose not. I did better with Reza, but he’s not as picky as Yasamin.” 

“I think you’re terrible,” she says, glancing sideways at him. “Also, what happened to your face?” 

“My face?” Malik peers at her. “Nothing. It’s the same face I had last year, and the year before.” 

“It isn’t.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

She’s very strange, Salma. Malik came back a year and a day as promised, and she was there waiting for him, even though part of him thought maybe he’d imagined her. He must have made up a lot about that night, because there are too many things that cannot be true.

But there she was, that year and then the next, and the next, and now he is fourteen. Last year she teased him and pushed him into the water, despite the fact he is the crown prince who will soon be king. She splashed with him and smiled, dark eyes happy, flashes of silver beneath the water in the harbor that made him think of that night he almost paid the price for all kings of his line. 

This year, though, she took one look at him and seemed angry, in the same way Yasamin did when Malik saw her in the training yard and did not speak to her. He wishes he could ask someone, but his father’s dead, his father’s submissive never smiles at Malik with his eyes and his mother is a noblewoman he’s only met a time or two. And his cousin, his blood-brother Nader, would rather talk about swords than girls. 

“Did you not like your gift?” Malik asks, because sometimes when girls are mad at you, it’s because you did not bring the right token. “I thought of what you might like, but it was hard. You are not like many of the girls I know, Salma. Or the boys.” 

She inhales sharply and closes her hand around the little gift he’d brought, a seashell he’d found himself on a wild island shaped like an Almyran crescent moon, polished to a shine. It’s dark and wild like her eyes and her hair, different colors shining depending on the light. He used delicate tools to drive a hole in the shell without shattering it, then found a chain of silver and carefully threaded it through. 

“I like it.” She stares down at it. “Do you know that silver will break curses of the drowned ghosts? The ones that are restless and take your mind from you.” 

She tells such stories, old myths as if they’re real. “Of course. Everyone knows that,” Malik says, a little huffy. “The silver, the cold water, it’s why Almyra knows to take the salt from water before you drink it.” 

“Hmph,” Salma says. “That is foolish. You shouldn’t have to take the salt, you should just learn to swim.” 

“I  _ do  _ know how to swim,” Malik says, huffier now. 

“Hah! Did you forget how I found you?” 

He would be angry but she’s smiling now, the same kind of smile she wore last year, and the year before. Malik will allow some teasing, to see it again. “No. How could I? But if you can breathe the salt and swim, then maybe you don’t need that gift --” he reaches playfully for it, as if he’d take it back. 

“Gifts given free cannot be taken back without terrible consequence!” she says, snatching her hand away, pressing the shell necklace to her breast. 

“I wouldn’t really take it back,” Malik says. “What kind of king would I be, to do that?” 

She stares at him with those dark eyes, endless, like the night he thought he would drown, gasping at the sky, the stars, the last thing he feared he would ever see. “Malik.” 

She never did call him  _ prince,  _ or  _ your highness _ . “Yes?”

“This girl. This Yasamin? She told you not to talk to her because she worried that you would not, and she did not want to be disappointed if you ignored her.” 

“I would not have ignored her,” Malik says. “But I also wished to do as she asked.” 

A fleeting look passes over her face. She looks again at the necklace, rubs her thumb over the shell. “Then she is not the one for you.” Her voice sounds wistful, sad. “You need a queen someday who does not speak lies.” 

Before he can speak, she leans in and presses her mouth to his. It’s a quick thing, sweet, and before he can make sense of any of this, she pulls away and says, “A year and a day. Promise it.” 

“I promise it,” he says, and watches as she slips from the dock and falls under the waves. No matter how long he watches, he never sees her come up to breathe, not once. 

His mouth tastes like salt. 

***

Salma is waiting for him when Malik finally climbs onto the statue, this time. It’s almost midnight, and she’s actually wearing a dress, a slip of a thing made of gossamer silk that clings to her skin and is held together by a coarse rope and string. It looks like she pieced it together herself, a rude mimicry of the gowns the girls in the upper city wear, and she plucks at it as Malik hauls himself one-handed onto the goddess’ lap. 

“You’re late,” Salma says. She isn’t looking at him. 

“My wyvern,” Malik says. He rolls his shoulder, grimaces, and prods the lump of bandages under his sleeve. “He took an arrow this afternoon, in the training yards.”

Salma turns at this, lips parted. She has a hand on her necklace, and when she sees his arm, she grabs it so quickly that a lance of dull pain shoots up his shoulder. “This is not a wyvern,” she says. “Did you think I would not notice, Malik? Who hurt you?”

She says it so fiercely, her eyes flashing, lips curled in a snarl, that Malik nearly laughs. “It was only a graze. A small thing. My wyvern, he is another. I will not be flying him between ships this summer.”

“But  _ who, _ ” Salma says. “Who would  _ dare _ ?”

“I  _ am _ to be king, soon,” Malik says. Of course he knows who hired the man who shot his wyvern, who bloodied Malik while he put her through her paces. His father’s submissive, Bahadur, has always watched him from the shadows, poisoning the court against him, hiring jugglers to fumble their blades too close to his table, sweet, beautiful things with the same kind of face and demeanor to slide their fingers over his wine. One day, he will have to see to him. He nearly did, today, with his wyvern howling and whining like Malik had kicked him, blood running down his arm, the submissives in the training yards all shaking on their knees before him. 

“Cast them into the sea,” Salma says. “And I will call my sisters up to take them.”

Malik raises his brows. “You have sisters?”

Salma stops, suddenly, which is strange, because only a moment before, she was poised on the goddess’ knee as though ready to strangle Bahadur with her bare hands. Now, she just stares at him, and she snatches her hand away from his arm as though struck.

“I do not want you speaking to my sisters,” she says. “They will want you. You are very. You have. You were not so tall before, or so. Big.”

“What does that have to do with sisters?” Malik asks. 

“They are foolish,” Salma says. “Like those girls. The ones in the palace. They will want to.” She looks down, which causes an odd little thrill to rush through Malik, like the swoop of his stomach when in flight over the sails of his fleet. 

“I am better at kissing, since the last time we spoke,” Malik says. 

“You. Who. Is she. Does she have. Are her breasts?” Salma says, nonsensically, cupping her own through the terrible gown. Malik considers them, for a moment, and Salma quickly lets go. “Does she?”

“I do not know what you want me to say,” Malik says, carefully.

“You have no right to be the way you are,” Salma cries, and Malik gets up as she slides off the goddess’ lap.

“What is  _ wrong _ with you,” Malik says, and Salma flings her hands in the air and stomps to the edge of the statue. “Wait.”

“What,” Salma says. There are tears in her eyes. Tears. Malik will never, in his life, understand her. 

“A year and a day?” Malik asks. Salma’s face twists, and she turns away from him, fists clenched. Then she whips back around and lifts her chin imperiously, despite the tears hanging from her lashes.

“Yes,” she says, all strangled. “Swear.”

“I swear it,” Malik says.

And with that, Salma jumps into the harbor, leaving Malik standing there, alone, holding his injured arm and wondering exactly what he'd done to make her cry.

***

He kisses her again in a year and a day, when she emerges from the water with her hair braided down one side and the necklace shining against her bare skin. She doesn’t ask about girls or boys or the people at the palace, but she does run her fingers along the scar on his arm and kiss it, softly, before looking up at him with her sea-dark eyes and pressing his hand to the hollow of her throat.

When he hands her the gown he’d found for her, silver as the scales that wink under the waves, she runs the silk through her fingers and smiles at her feet. 

“Come back to me in a year and a day,” she says. “And perhaps I’ll give you something just as precious.”

As she leaves him, the warmth of her lips fading in the cool night air, Malik suspects that she already has.

***

Salma is playing with the necklace, glancing over him. He wonders if it is because he’s been staring at her; the curve of her shoulders, the shape of -- of her, her breasts, beneath the dress. He thinks often of the way she kissed him last year, the taste of her. He spends time in his bed, in the morning, thinking of taking her dress from her, pressing her back into the water, tasting her again. 

He wonders if she can tell, simply by looking at him. He thinks of others, sometimes; the pretty submissive boy who sank to his knees, trembling, and took Malik in his mouth. He wonders if he should tell her this, about how he slid his fingers in dark hair and closed his eyes, thought of her. 

“What does it mean, Malik,” Salma says, startling him from his guilty thoughts. “When. A person has…” she touches her neck again, where she still wears the silver chain with the shell he gave her years ago. “Like this, but wide. Against their throat.” 

“Do you mean, a collar?” Malik asks. He knows, of course, that whatever she is, this creature that came for him when he should have breathed his last, is no simple human. She has aged, as he has, but there’s something timeless about her, her dark eyes as deep as the sea, the voice that makes him shiver and ache in places he does not like to think about. 

“Is that what it is called?” She tilts her head, glancing up at him. “Is it like this, a token?” She holds up the necklace. 

Malik thinks about having her on her knees for him, her mouth -- he has to stop thinking that, very quickly, though. It makes -- well. He clears his throat. “No, a collar is a sign. That you are submissive, that you have a dominant.” 

Her brow furrows. “What are these words, I do not understand.” 

“A submissive is someone who...feels the urge to, to obey.” That’s not right, not really, but his mind feels tangled like ship rope. “Is this not a thing, where you’re from? That some are born and the urge to kneel, to service. And some to be knelt before, to take, to dominate.” 

“Hmm. Which are you?” 

Malik sits up straighter. He’s insulted. “I am a dominant. I am a king. Kings are dominants.” 

“Are they,” she says, with a little laugh. “How do you know?” 

“You just know,” says Malik. “It is a, a feeling that you have.” He can’t stop thinking about the boy on his knees, the way he’d trembled with such excitement, saying  _ I will make this so good for you, your highness. _

And he had. His mouth, wet and hot, the way his throat -- Ah. 

“Well, show me,” Salma says, and her laugh sounds like bells jingling in the wind, like the kind outside his cabin door on his ship.

Malik does not know what to say, thinking only now about Salma -- 

She presses a hand to her chest and smiles, secret and soft. “Do you want to give me one? A collar? You, who say you’re a dominant.” 

“I do not  _ say  _ I was a dominant,” Malik says, putting the natural command in his voice and perhaps too much of it, for simply making a point. “I  _ am _ one.” 

She blinks, her eyes widening. “I -- did feel. Something. What do you do with them, your - your submissives, with their collars?” 

“They are yours,” Malik says, gruffly. “You should ask your -- “ he doesn’t know how to refer to her family. She has never wanted him to speak of them. “Your family.” 

“But we do not have collars. I want to know, Malik.” 

Shifting, Malik says, “They are with you, your submissives. When you are a dominant. They -- you take them.”

“You have children, with them?” 

“Yes, but not heirs. Kings of Almyra must be dominants. The sea demands it of us.” 

She smiles at that, sideways. “Is that so. Well, you will take a queen, then, who does not kneel for you, but makes others do so? Will she take them, as you say?” 

“Ah,” Malik says. “If she wishes. It is the queen’s right.” He glances up at the goddess on her throne, the statue by which they’ve always met since she first returned him to Almyra. “My mother, she was not my father’s queen but a noble who bore him a son. My father, he loved his - his submissive. Very much.” 

More than Malik. He was the reason Amir cast his son to the sea. But he does not tell her this. 

“You will not do that,” Salma says, and there’s something in  _ her  _ voice, like dominance but not quite, a fluidity, shifting like the tide. “You will have a queen you love.” 

“I am young,” Malik says. “And not yet king.” 

She touches her throat, thinking. “A collar made of shells. I would like that, I think.” She stares out at the sea again, the wind picking up loose strands of her hair. “You must find a strong queen.” 

“As I said, it is some time before I must think of that. I will go to sea, to prove I can be king. It will be some time before I am back, but when I do, they will crown me.” Malik stares at her, something wild and sweet filling him. “Salma. If I asked you, would you --” 

She rises to her knees and presses two fingers to his mouth. “A collar of shells. But you choose them for me. On your journey, find the best ones. When you have enough, when it is ready, then you can ask me that.” 

She takes her fingers away, leans in and kisses him. He feels dizzy with it, the desire, the thought that this beautiful, strange creature wants him, chose him, wants to wear his collar. This gorgeous woman who saved his life, who sings to him like a -- 

_ Siren.  _

“Shh,” she says, against his mouth. “I chose to lead you not to death, but life. Use this gift well, Malik. Bring me what I have asked for, and I will be yours.” 

And then she is gone, a splash of silver, a promise. 

***

Tiana von Riegan, lady of the realm and sometime acting duchess when her father isn’t looking, clings to the drainpipe outside the Fraldarius estate with her hair trailing ribbons and her magnificent evening gown ruffling in the breeze.

“You swear you’ll write?” Belle Fraldarius, Tiana’s dearest friend and the best swordswoman for hire in all of Fodlan, kisses Tiana one last time, her soft lips trembling. Her husband sprawls on the bed behind her, utterly debauched and far too pleased with himself, and Tiana runs her fingers through Belle’s dark hair, made wild by a night spent writhing on the sheets under Tiana’s careful hand.

“Always, sweet thing,” Tiana says. Belle blushes, raising a hand to her cheek.

The door on the other side of the room rattles, and Belle’s husband clutches the bed hangings with a squawk of alarm. “Tiana von Riegan!” Duke Fraldarius’ voice booms in the early morning air. “I swear by my name, if you have bedeviled my son on his wedding night, I will have your house dragged before the king!”

“Can he do that?” Tiana asks. Belle goes pale.

“He’s on the king’s council,” she says, as Rodrigue stumbles across the room to brace his back against the door. “I expect you’ll have to hurry if you’re to, to make your ship before he sends the guards.”

Tiana beams at her. “As though he could hold me.”

“Oh, Tiana!” Belle wraps her arms around Tiana’s neck, and Tiana nearly slips off the drain. One of her useless dancing shoes goes spiraling into the grass, and she gropes at the wall as Duke Fraldarius’ voice rises to a roar. “Remember me, wherever you go.”

“Of course I will,” Tiana swears. Belle releases her at last just as Rodrigue’s feet slip and the door goes crashing open, and Tiana slides down the pipe with her gown fluttering about her waist like the wings of a bird. She glances up just in time to see Duke Fraldarius’ reddened, angular face framed by a perfectly tousled set of curls, and waves.

“Demon,” Duke Fraldarius snarls. Tiana laughs and races for the garden wall. “Harlot! Uncultured… beast!”

“Thank you!” Tiana shouts, as she scrambles barefoot up the crumbling brick. “I’m pleased we understand one another!”

“I’ll have you dragged through the street in  _ chains, _ ” the duke growls. Tiana pauses a moment as he half hangs out the window, her beautiful gown puffed up about her amid a spray of jasmine and honeysuckle, and flashes him a brilliant, meaningless smile before she tips over to the other side and takes off running.

It really was a lovely wedding, all things considered. Belle was so dashing in her blue velvet gown, Rodrigue had shaved off his unfortunate mustache, and honestly, who could deny them when Belle clasped her hands so fervently and danced with her til midnight under the wheeling stars?

It’s only a shame that it ended so soon, but Tiana has her own goals to accomplish, and a new life waiting for her across the sea.

A shrill whistle rings out along the cobbled street, and Tiana groans. Constables. Of course. There are no end of them these days, what with the island nation of Almyra slowly pushing at the borders, their colorful sails unfurling in the harbor like proud wyverns, bold as brass. Tiana gathers up the heavy folds of her evening gown and darts into an alley between two low buildings, dodging ferns and losing a ribbon to the street for her trouble. When she bursts onto the complex web of the docks, her chest heaving against a bodice that is cut just a mite too low for the weather, she turns to find the ship she’d booked passage to Morfis on is already leaving the harbor, it’s white sails full with a strong wind.

“Damn!” A sailor passing by scuttles out of her way, eyeing her like she truly  _ is _ a demon, and Tiana clenches her fists in her gown. Her one chance at escape, years of careful planning, and she’d let it slip by because she just couldn’t bear to leave Belle looking so lonely and lovely on her wedding bed.

Whistles sound behind her, a whole host of them, and Tiana bites down a snarl. If she had her sword, this wouldn’t be a problem, but she’d left it in the garden last night, so now all Tiana can do is frantically search the docks for somewhere to hide. She ducks behind a stack of barrels as a constable stumbles past, blowing sadly on his whistle with every puff for air, and looks down into one of them to find a pile of colorful silks, Almyran by the embroidery on the hem. It’s just low enough to hold her, and Tiana clambers inside and fits on the lid just as the desperate whistling and thumping thunders past her like a flock of flightless wyverns. She sits in the dark, half smothered by her voluminous gown, and waits for the whistling to fade into the distance.

Then, just as she’s about to twist off the lid and escape to freedom, the barrel rattles. She hisses softly as the barrel is tipped over onto its side, and bumps and thumps against it as it slowly, slowly rolls down the dock.

The sailors pushing the barrel laugh, and one of them speaks in Almyran, low and soft. Tiana only knows the language through the benefit of growing up on the border with a brother more interested in the nuance of Almyran poetry than the strength of their swords. Still, the accent is hard to parse, and it’s difficult to translate when one is being bounced about in a barrel full of silk.

“They say it’s a woman,” one of the sailors says, as Tiana mentally curses every god she’s ever prayed to for guidance. “These Fodlaners, they are always making a fuss. What will this woman do? Set fire to the harbor?”

“They act like she already has,” says the other. “Where does the captain want this? Below?”

“Put it with the crystals. Near his cabin, yes?”

“You just want him to look at that new tattoo, eh, break you in.”

“Of course I do, do you think I’m blind?”

Tiana bites her tongue as the barrel rolls to a stop. The voices fade, but every time Tiana tries to push up the lid and slither out, footsteps approach or new voices call out, and she remains frozen in the barrel, waiting for a chance that never comes.

She can’t stay on an Almyran vessel, that’s for certain. Oh, Fodlan isn’t exactly at war with Almyra, but Fodlan ships have been known to hastily run up a black flag and fire on Almyran vessels from time to time, and she doubts anyone would look kindly on a woman in an evening gown appearing on deck without warning. She  _ could _ try to bluff and bluster her way out, get a few of the submissives on their knees and make a run for it in the confusion, but by the time she manages it, the constables will likely be waiting to drag her off to wherever uncultured harlots go to die.

“Oh, to hell with it all,” Tiana snarls, when another set of footsteps go pattering by. She’ll just have to fight an entire Almyran vessel bare-handed, break out of prison, sell off her jewels, and sail her own damn ship to Morfis. Tiana pats down her dress, which only puffs up in her face again, wriggles in the silks for a good position, and reaches up to push off the lid.

Which slides free before her fingers can even brush the surface, revealing a pale blue sky and the scowling face of the most beautiful man Tiana has seen in her life.

***

There is a woman in a barrel of silks. 

She’s staring up at him with eyes the color of the sea on a cool morning, rust-red hair tumbling around her shoulders, and Malik has no idea why she’s here but she certainly isn’t supposed to be. 

“You,” he says, scowling. “What is this? Do you know the punishment for sneaking aboard a vessel, girl?” 

The woman dares to give him the haughtiest stare imaginable, as if  _ she  _ is the Captain of the White Wyvern and not a stowaway. “Don’t you dare call me  _ girl _ , who do you think you are?” 

Her Almyran is choppy and her accent atrocious, but it’s clear enough for her meaning to get through. Malik draws himself up to his full height, puts all his dominance in his voice and says, “I am the captain. Get out of there.” 

He reaches in to pull her from the barrel, but she  _ smacks at his hand  _ and tumbles out of it, a mess of silks and tangled hair and attitude. She scrambles to her feet immediately and snarls, “I’ll find my way off your ship myself, thanks,” and starts marching to the door. 

“To swim with the sharks?” Malik asks, leaning against the wall. 

“The -- we’ve set sail?” She whirls on him. “No, that’s not possible.” 

“Almyran ships don’t stay long in Fodlan ports, lest your cowardly soldiers try anything.” 

The woman puts her hands on her hips. “Yes, they’re terrible, but where are we going?” 

“To sea,” Malik says, and she snarls again, stomping back toward him with no fear despite her smaller stature, despite the dominance in his voice. 

“Yes, but to  _ where _ ,” she says, slowly, as if he is a child. 

“Almyra,” he says, shrugging. It’s the truth, even if it’s a bit more complicated than that. More and more, the fleet has strayed from the palace where Malik’s would-be murderer still lives. Malik is gathering his supporters, his allies. The fleet is loyal to him. His father’s submissive grows older, weaker, with less support than before. 

And he is to meet his beloved -- Salma of the Silver Sea, the siren who saved him, who bewitched him. It has been five years since he took his crown, since he set out on the sea to earn it. And each time, he’s been collecting the shells, patiently, carefully. For the collar he will one day give her. 

It has been years, too, since he last kissed her. Sometimes he sees her on distant shores as they pass, sees a flash of silver in the water as he stands on the deck. Sometimes his wyvern, Khalid, comes to the ship with sea glass twined in his antlers. But he has not seen her, touched her, in so long. 

“Then you will take me there, too, and let me go,” the woman says, drawing his attention. Her eyes flash. She is bossy, this woman. 

“Will I?” 

“Yes,” she says, simply. “I am the daughter of an important man. He will pay you for my return.” 

“I have no need of Fodlan gold,” Malik huffs. “You are not so charming I would not return you for free.” 

She stomps a foot. “Ooh! Well, if you must know, I was going to offer to  _ split  _ the gold. Half for you, half for me, so I could -- go. Somewhere.” 

There’s a shadow in her eyes, suddenly, a look that Malik recognizes. He, too, knows what it is like not to have his father’s love. Ten years have passed since the night he was tossed into the sea, but Malik sometimes feels it, still, that phantom push on his chest. 

“I will send no one unwilling to return to a home they hate,” Malik says. “You stay here, though, you will work. Go your way when we make port.” 

He steps toward her. “Those clothes, you will not --” 

He never finishes the sentence, because she moves like a dervish and he finds himself with her holding a dagger against his throat -- death, a hanging offense, for drawing arms against the king. Whipping and marooning for doing it to a captain. Both, when the captain  _ is  _ the king.

“I will not whore myself out for your crew and you will  _ not _ take my clothes.” 

Her eyes flash up at him, her breathing fast, pale face flushed. Malik bares his teeth at her, reaches down and grabs her wrist -- he has the knife out of her hand and her turned, shoved against a wall, before seconds have passed. “You will help on the  _ ship _ , hellion. That dress will only encumber you. I will find you clothing to be worn when  _ working _ .” 

“Oh,” she says. “That’s all right, then.” 

He steps back and hands her the weapon, but she stares at him like she doesn’t understand. “This is yours.” 

“I just tried to kill you,” she says. “I would have. I mean it.” 

Malik rolls his eyes. “You did not try very hard. Perhaps you are not good at it. But I will take no one’s weapons if they were trying to defend themselves. It is death to take by force what is meant to be freely given on this ship and any other of my fleet. Keep your blade, little demon. But draw it on me again, I will bury it in your heart and send you both to the seafloor to rot.” 

She doesn’t look very impressed. “Mmm. All right. I can work, just find me clothes.” 

“You do not give orders, here. I see that you are a dominant. But you are now, by the laws of the sea, a conscript. My sailor, little demon, and you will do as I say. What is your name?” 

“Tiana,” she says, and then, “What did you mean, your  _ fleet _ ? How many Almyran ships are you the captain of, huh?” 

Malik bows. “All of them.” 


End file.
